A Boston College sports blog capturing the highs and lows of being a BC fan living 1,000 miles from Chestnut Hill.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

WTF

In the Sporting News College Football Preview, the magazine said “League newcomer Boston College will pull at least one home upset—but also will lose to a conference team it has no business losing to” Everyone loves the big win. It is the annual loss to a team we should beat that is so confounding. BC fans refer to this as the WTF game. We are not the only school who goes through this and we’ve been doing this for decades, but in honor of Wake Forest, a team that put the WF in the What the F--- game, here are the definitive WTF games of TOB’s tenure.

September 6, 1997. BC 21, Temple 28. TOB's first game as a coach was certainly memorable…for all the wrong reasons. BC was up 14-0 early. Temple scored the winning TD late off a big play, on a drive that was kept alive by a special teams error (roughing the kicker) on a day with shaky QB play (MHass threw two INTs). You’ll notice this as a theme here. BTW, I was one of the few thousand in attendance at the Vet.

October 24, 1998. BC 31, Navy 32. Navy scored the winning TD with 1:41 left (sound familiar?) after scoring 22 fourth quarter points. We could’ve won the game, but our kicker hooked it with time expiring (special teams problems: check). Also it should be noted that our QB at the time -- Scott Mutryn -- fumbled the ball late in the fourth ruining an otherwise good day for him. While it might be respectable to lose to Navy now, it was not then. They were in one of their down cycles.

October 9, 1999. BC 14, Temple 24. This was TOB’s break-through year. We were bowl bound. We beat Notre Dame. We won eight. Our only regular season losses were to Miami, Virginia Tech and …Temple. WTF? What happened you ask? Well it involved blowing a 14-point lead with two fumbles and two interceptions. Prior to the game, we were undefeated. The Owls were winless.

2000, 2001, and 2002. No WTF? games. We were 7-5 in 2000, but the five losses all came against decent opponents. 2001 we lost winnable games to Miami, Stanford and Syracuse, but those teams were all bowl bound. The ’01 Miami loss was certainly a stomach punch (Ed Reed’s famous last minute return) but not a true WTF game. 2002 saw mistake filled games and frustrating losses, but they were against the better teams in the conference. At this point I thought TOB had gotten the WTFs out of his system. Not so much.

August 30, 2003. BC 28, Wake Forest 32. Quinton Porter’s first start. Wake went ahead on a 47-yard TD with 1:47 left. BTW, we had a 14-point lead in this game. Porter did not throw an interception but we fumbled three times including one of the most bizarre plays you’ll ever see. Here is how the AP writer described it at the time “…Quinton Porter fumbled the snap, picked the ball up and threw a pass that was batted back at him. Rather than knock the ball down for an incompletion, he caught it and it was jarred loose for a fumble that was recovered by Quintin Williams, ending BC's chances.” Yes that play actually happened. It was later found out that Porter was playing with a concussion and in somewhat of a fog on that fumbleception.

September 25, 2004. BC 14, Wake Forest 17. BC dominated this game. We moved the ball up and down the field but just couldn’t get it into the endzone. No problem, right? Let me give you my thoughts during the game: So what if we have a new freshman kicker. He was highly-touted. Ugh. He really missed the first one. Ouch, that second attempt wasn’t even close. Surely he won’t miss three? He did. I can’t believe we have not put this team away. At least we are still up and time is running out. Do you even want to know how it ended? 40-yard TD pass with a minute left. This one hurt. It was a long drive back from Winston-Salem.

I am sure some will read this and feel I overlooked a few games. My definition was pretty strict -- a bad team we were supposed to beat and losing in an inexplicable manner helped.

6 comments:

I'm glad you put that '98 Navy game in there-tends to be overlooked. However, it should be noted that Mutryn led the team downfield on a potential game -winning drive(sound familiar?) after the fumble and before the missed field goal-oh and we blew like a 28-6 lead all in the fourth quarter.

The 1999 loss to Temple was the quintessential WTF game. As I recall I was for some reason unable to watch or listen to the game that day (was it on TV in Boston?), but I will NEVER forget the exact place I was when I heard the news. Some people remember where they were for JFKs assassination or on 9/11/01... I remember learning of this game. I thought it was a practical joke. WTF.

That year could have been so amazing, too. That's when we blew a 28-0 lead on Miami at home, and when we won all those nailbiters (ND, Cuse, Baylor in OT - my first live BC football game...)